POETRY FOR THE JOURNEY
IN THE STORM
Be kind to yourself
when grief topples your boat
and scatters your oars
when your threads
of compassion
can’t knit
a full shawl
of embrace.
Behold the pit
where your heart
has fallen
and wait.
Be kind to yourself
when hope
lies buried
under winter’s snow’s crust,
when hurt slices
and dices
your soul
and nothing
but breath
reminds you
that you still
are alive.
So breathe then.
Breathe
through neglect
and abuse,
through abandonment
and shame.
And the raw intention of presence
will hold you
while you,
in the vortex
of change,
learn to breathe
underwater.
CAN YOU?
Can you hear yourself living,
beneath the surface
of your mind’s chatter
and
the insubordinate longings of your heart?
Can you hear yourself living
in the midst
of life’s relentless noise
and frantic pace?
Can you hear life
pulsing
beneath layers
of unquestioned existence,
like a river
flowing in the depths
beyond the past,
beyond the wounds,
beyond the darkness?
Can you hear life’s voice calling,
longing to meet you
in surrender and silence?
Can you hear yourself living
not for others
not through others,
not for recognition
nor glory
or fame?
Can you hear yourself living
through pain and sorrow,
when waves
of incomprehensible whispers
push you
into the fires
of transformation?
Can you hear yourself living
when your defences are up
and the fear
of your own nakedness
makes you reach
for clever words
or self-righteous blaming?
Can you hear yourself living?
Can you afford to?
THE BONES TRILOGY
KNOCKING AT MY BODY'S DOOR
Is there space
in there for me
between tendons and muscles,
between nerves and bones?
Is there space in there for me?
Is there space
in there for me
between heart and lungs
between arteries and veins?
Is there space in there for me?
How could
there space
be in there
for me
when,
starved for oxygen,
all organs
beg
as one:
Let us now rest
We are tired.
PLEASE.
Is there space in there for me?
Is there?
xxxxxxxxxx
WEN GHIBLI GOES
I am a heap
of dry bones
flesh and tendons
burnt away
by WAVES
upon WAVES
of relentless heat.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
TOUCHING THE BONES
A pile
of bones
lies
unseen
yet not forgotten
as gushing words
circle and swirl,
poking into ribs
and skull.
"Wake up.
The estranged flesh
of your youth
wants to clothe
your nakedness
and call you
back
from exile."
Rattling sounds
join the chorus
of the wind's song.
A SPELL IS CAST
I was formed
in my mother's
WOMB
when the string
of grandmother's
WORDS
fused itself
into my
DNA
like a surgeon's thread,
the bitterness of her
GRIEF
shaping my unborn
LIFE
with the
SHAME
of love unrestrained;
poisoned daggers
plunged
into the fluid
nourishment
of silence,
coiling themselves
AROUND MY INNOCENCE
invisible
CHAINS
holding the
SPELL
in place.
ECHO-LESS
Is this Nothing,
and Nowhere,
and No One
the place
where
YOU reside?
In the disappearance
of me,
in the dissolving
of my cells' humanity,
in the perfume
of my soul's ashes,
will your lips
curl up
and will your eyes
fill
with the promised joy
of our ultimate touching?
What more
do
YOU
want?
Is this Nothing,
and Nowhere,
and NO One
the space
I am called
to reside?
The world
spins and moves
yet
deeper
I go
into Nothing,
Nowhere,
No One.
Fists driven
into a wall
of liquid silence
no seeds sprouting
on the arid land
of my walking
no wind fanning
the heat in my flesh.
What more
do
YOU
want?
THE HUSBAND/FATHER DANCE
From a lonely place I long for you, my darling.
I stretch towards you.… to touch you.…to hold you….
As soon as my hands find your skin you are no longer within reach
Your face becomes blurred, I can still see you but you no longer
are the man I know.
Captured by a secret hand, hope sinks, whisked off behind the curtain dividing day and night.
A greater distance is now between us
Another time, another man.
I fear this space, I fear the face I struggle to recognize
I don’t want to look.
My eyes still search for the tenderness and the safety of your familiar gaze.
but this other presence jealously summons me.
I turn my head, away from where you stand…. waiting.
The light
dims.
A well opens;
a passage is revealed:
Descending
I walk away from you
consenting to touch the other man,
No more overlapping,
No more mingling,
nor altering of boundaries between present and past,
between pain and freedom.
I am coming to you my love…..
in a while…
for a while away from you…..
the other wants me too.
THROUGH THE VEILS
(To my mother)
Your silence
a shrine,
a hiding place,
a hunting shed
from where you observe your prey
unobserved and unseen,
you
full of heaviness
and unresolved longings.
Laden with a broken past
your silence
still controls
your every move.
What mother,
what person,
what woman
would you have grown up to be
had the intricacies
of your dark tunnels
not held you down?
Your silence,
layer upon layer
of protective veils,
thin,
transparent.
Too many to count.
Too many to draw.
HANDS
Hands at the end of the arm,
Entrance and exit of the flow of life.
Hands as part of the arm,
Appendixes of a thousand tools.
Hands as beginning and end
of the heart parallel.
Hands move,
Hands wave
Hands back and front.
Hands hold, hands give, hands take.
Hands accept, hands refuse.
Hands open in a warm welcome,
Hands closed with fists full of anger and frustration.
Thumbs up, I am ok and I will live.
Thumbs down and it is now over.
Beautiful hands, long nimble fingers
Delicate, sensitive,
A light touch and
The whole world is felt through them.
The story of a lifetime is stored in each crease
Formed through repetitive work and faithful routine.
How can I give you up?
How can I accept to lose your faithful and powerful companionship?
The heart breaks against the harshness of your destiny,
A rock of judgement against which no recourse seems possible.
Grace, how I cry for grace……and mercy…..
That they may meet the heart in the morning
And melt the hardness away.
A fool, a hard, self-destructive fool I have been,
Hitting when I needed holding,
Shutting out when I needed letting in,
Numbing myself when I needed to feel,
Smiling when tears needed to flow,
Showing the face of strength
when the fear of my own vulnerabilities allowed no space
for the tenderness of soft embracing.
Hands, my hands!
You carry so much of my soul
Within your small, confined belonging.
How can I ever regain your trust and companionship?
And will I ever see you flourish in the energy of my own surrender and love?
WHAT IF
Food broken down into carbohydrates,
vitamins and minerals,
proteins and fats.
The soul can’t breathe!
What’s nutritious and what’s not.
What’s outdated and what’s hot!
How we soothe our need to belong!
Yet the soul can’t breathe!
We break down and apart, longing to understand,
relentlessly trying to own the elusive knowledge,
feeding the illusion we are in control, delaying the time
of final confrontation and surrender.
We break down the body, to understand its health.
We break down nature, to understand its secrets.
We break down the mind to understand its functioning
We break down life to understand its patterns and dynamics.
We break down experience to pass it on to others.
Yet wisdom is lost.
We break down, we prod,
we poke, we search,
we question,
we fight to bring to light
what is hidden.
We break down to break apart to break open.
We are broken.
We know plenty.
We are empty
Our knowledge is overflowing.
Still our soul can’t breathe……
unless
perhaps……
Mystery.
THE ANXIETY COLLECTOR
I am hungry.....
Fill my dustbins,
people
of no self-containment
Sever yourselves
from your unwanted garbage.
Seal it tight.
I exist
for no other reasons
but to collect.
Disguise
the putrid remains
of your unclaimed humanity.
Leave them
at the doorsteps
of your weekly regurgitations.
In the night
I'll come.
I'll come
while the blanket of sleep
has you convinced
that it was nothing.
Nothing but a dream.
PLUCKED
Someone
is sitting
at my piano
playing a tune
I cannot understand
its notes
like scratches
on a glass,
dissonant,
of no value
to my days
yet sweet melody
to my nights.
How does one dance
to such a music?
I , WOMAN
I, woman,
so beautiful and lovely,
have searched
for my reflections
on the glossy surface
of your heart
and all I see
is an opaque image,
its contours
smudged
and smeared
by your expectations
and
demands of me.
CAN YOU HEAR ME,DAD?
How
do you
mourn
a ghost?
If mourn
I must
I shall mourn
the void,
the bottomless nothing
I can
never
wish to fill.
I will mourn
the absent gaze.
I will mourn
the exiled witness.
I will mourn
the silence
of your utterings.
I will mourn
having to mourn
what never was,
NEVER KNOWING
what could have been.
The loss
of you
I never had.
WHAT IS, IS
I wanted
a love lettter
from you
in words,
in song,
in music
but
nothing
ever came
because
you were
and
always
have been
my
love letter.
GOODNIGHT KISS
From ' Beannacht' by John O'Donohue - Revisited by Paola Ferretti Pontiggia
When at day's end
your shoulder's are heavy
and the clay of your body
calls for night's rest
may sleep find you ready
to accept its embrace.
When the boat of your thoughts
seems to sink
from the weight of its passengers
and the ocean of night
blackens beneath you
may there come
across the waters
of silence
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow wind
work these words of love
around you,
an invisible cloak
guarding your life
holding you safe.